POV: Lily Ashford
The gunfire gets closer.
I'm pressed against the window, watching the courtyard descend into chaos. Men in dark clothes—not Dante's men—are breaching the outer gates. Muzzle flashes light up the night. Shouts echo across the grounds.
This is real. This is actually happening.
And Dante is down there.
My door flies open.
I spin around, expecting Dante. Instead, a massive man fills the doorway. Taller than everyone else I've seen. Scarred. Covered in tattoos that look like they tell stories of violence. His hand is on a gun at his hip.
"You need to move," he says. His voice is surprisingly calm given that bullets are flying outside.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"Roman. I'm your security detail now." He doesn't wait for me to respond. "We need to get you to the safe room. Now."
"But Dante—"
"Can handle himself." Roman's eyes are hard. "You're what he can't handle. Which makes you a liability. Which means I need to protect you."
The way he says it—like protecting me is a burden he's accepted—makes something twist in my chest.
Gunfire erupts on the second floor. Roman's hand tightens on his weapon.
"Move!" he commands.
I move.
He grabs my arm and pulls me out of my room, down the hallway. Bullets shatter a window we pass. Glass explodes around us. I scream, but Roman doesn't slow down.
"Stay close," he says.
We're heading toward the stairwell when three of Antonio's men round the corner ahead. Roman doesn't hesitate. He pulls me behind him and draws his gun.
"Get down!" he shouts.
I drop to the floor as gunfire erupts. The sound is deafening. Terrifying. Real.
One of the attackers goes down. Then another. Roman moves with brutal efficiency—no hesitation, no mercy. Just cold, calculated violence.
The third attacker retreats.
"Go," Roman says, pulling me up. "Move."
We're running again. Down the stairs. Through hallways. My heart is pounding so hard I think it might explode.
Sofia appears from a side door. "This way!"
She leads us to what looks like a closet. Roman touches a hidden panel, and a section of wall slides open, revealing a staircase descending into darkness.
"Go," Roman says to me. "Sofia will stay with you."
"What about you?" I ask.
"I'm going back up. Mr. Morelli needs backup."
"Roman, don't—"
But he's already gone.
Sofia guides me down the stairs into a bunker. The walls are reinforced. There's a bed, supplies, water. A command center with monitors showing different parts of the estate.
On the screens, I watch the battle unfold.
Dante moves through the fighting like a ghost. Efficient. Deadly. Every movement calculated to neutralize threats with minimal exposure. His men fight around him, but he's the center of gravity. The thing everything revolves around.
And I realize: he's fighting for me.
Not for his empire or his territory. For me.
The thought terrifies me more than the gunfire.
"He'll be fine," Sofia says quietly, watching my face. "Mr. Morelli is always fine."
"How do you know?"
"Because I've watched him survive things that would kill ordinary men," Sofia says. She sits on the bed and pats the space next to her. "Sit, dear. It'll be a while."
I can't sit. I pace the bunker, watching the monitors. Watching Dante fight. Watching Roman move through the chaos with lethal grace, covering Dante's back.
An attacker gets close. Too close. His gun comes up, aimed at Dante's back.
Without thinking, I scream.
Roman appears from nowhere and takes the shot instead of Dante. The attacker goes down.
"Roman!" I cry out, pressing my hands to the monitor.
But Roman is moving again, bleeding from his shoulder but still fighting. Still protecting him.
"He'll be fine," Sofia repeats, but her voice is tight. "Roman is stronger than he looks."
The battle rages for what feels like hours. In reality, it's probably forty minutes. Dante's men push the attackers back toward the perimeter. The gunfire becomes less frequent. More sporadic.
Then it stops.
Silence.
The monitors show Dante standing in the middle of the courtyard, breathing hard, covered in other people's blood. His men stand around him. Roman is leaning against a wall, one hand pressed to his shoulder wound.
"He's coming down," Sofia says, listening to something I can't hear. A communication device in her ear. "Everyone did their job. No one's dead."
The bunker door opens.
Dante enters, and the first thing he does is look for me.
When his eyes find mine, something in his expression shifts. The battle-hardened commander becomes someone else. Someone vulnerable.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, moving toward me.
"No, but Roman—"
"Roman's fine. Bullet wound. He's had worse."
Dante reaches me and takes my face in his hands, tilting my head, checking for injuries. His hands are shaking slightly. The only crack in his armor.
"I told you to stay in your room," he says, but there's no anger. Just relief.
"I was safe," I reply. "Because you made sure I was safe."
"That's not the point—"
"Dante." I place my hands on his wrists. "You fought for me. I watched you. You were protecting me."
He closes his eyes like he's in pain. "That was stupid."
"Maybe. But you did it anyway."
When he opens his eyes again, there's something raw in them. Something that looks like fear.
"You can't matter to me," he says. "If you matter to me, I lose leverage. I lose control. I become vulnerable."
"Too late," I whisper, echoing his words from earlier.
He pulls me against him, one hand tangling in my hair, the other gripping my waist like he's afraid I'll disappear.
"I don't know how to do this," he says into my hair. "I don't know how to care about someone."
"You're doing fine," I say. "You're keeping me alive. That's caring."
He pulls back enough to look at me. "Lily, I need you to understand something. I'm not a good man. I've done terrible things. I will do terrible things. If you stay with me, you'll see parts of me that will horrify you."
"I'm not leaving."
"You should."
"Dante." I reach up and touch his face. He flinches like my touch burns. "I don't need you to be good. I need you to be honest. And you've been honest. You told me what you are. You didn't pretend."
He takes my hand and presses it to his chest. Under my palm, I feel his heart racing.
"When that bullet was coming at me," Dante says quietly, "the only thing I thought was that I hadn't kissed you yet. That felt like a failure."
My breath catches.
"So I'm going to fix that now," he continues.
He leans in slowly, giving me time to stop him. Time to say no.
I don't.
His lips meet mine, and it's nothing like the gentleness I expected. It's desperate and consuming and full of all the things he won't say out loud. His hand moves to the back of my neck, angling my face, deepening the kiss.
I'm drowning.
It's the only way to describe it.
I kiss him back, and I feel him shudder. Like my response is breaking something inside him. Something he's held locked up for years.
When we finally break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"I need to handle the aftermath," Dante says, his forehead pressed to mine. "But I'm coming back to you. Understand?"
"Understand."
He pulls away reluctantly. At the bunker door, he pauses and looks back at me one more time. Like he's memorizing me. Like he's afraid I'll vanish.
"Keep her safe," he says to Sofia. It's not a request.
"Always, sir."
Once he's gone, Sofia pats my arm. "Well. That was not what I expected to happen tonight."
"What do you mean?" I ask, though I can still feel the ghost of his lips on mine.
"I mean," Sofia says with a small smile, "that Mr. Morelli has never kissed anyone. In all my years working for him, I've never seen him kiss anyone. And certainly not like that."
"Like what?"
"Like he was afraid she'd disappear," Sofia says. "Like she mattered more than breathing."
Hours pass. I sit in the bunker, watching monitors showing Dante directing the cleanup. Bodies being removed—the attackers who didn't make it. The wounded being tended. Evidence being erased.
This is the side of him he warned me about. The darkness. The violence.
It doesn't change how I feel.
At 3 AM, Sofia receives a message. "You can go back to your room."
I climb the stairs back to my suite. The hallway is cleaned. No blood. No glass. Like the battle never happened, except for the guards that now stand at every corner.
I'm expecting my room to be locked. Instead, it's open.
Dante stands at my window, looking out at the grounds he just defended. He's changed into fresh clothes. Showered. But there's a weariness in his shoulders.
"Come here," he says without turning around.
I do.
He pulls me in front of him, wrapping his arms around me from behind. We stand together, watching the sunrise paint the sky pink and gold.
"I killed six men tonight," Dante says quietly. "To protect you."
"I know."
"And you don't care."
"I care. But not the way you think. I care that you're alive. I care that you came back."
He turns me around and kisses my forehead. "We can't keep doing this. Sneaking moments. You in captivity. Me pretending I don't feel anything."
"So what do you want to do?"
"I want to figure out who you are without the chains," he says. "I want to see if you'd choose to stay with me willingly."
"What if I would?"
"Then I'd have to face the fact that I'm capable of love," Dante says. "And that terrifies me more than anything Antonio Bianchi could do."
I reach up and kiss him. Softly this time. A promise.
"Then maybe we're both terrified," I say. "And maybe that's okay."
But even as I say it, I realize something's changed. Something's broken open between us.
And there's no going back now.